By Steven Scheer
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s government said on Monday it had signed a deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google for a more than $1 billion project to provide cloud services for the country’s public sector and military.
A month ago, AWS and Google won a tender, beating out Microsoft, Oracle and IBM for the four phase project known as “Nimbus”.
Finance Ministry officials said they expected to start moving data to the cloud in about two months, but it will not be a centralised system since there are two providers, while some data will not be on the cloud.
The four phases of the project include acquisition and construction of cloud infrastructure, formulating government policy for migrating to the cloud, integration and migration, and control and optimisation of cloud activity.
Nimbus is a multi-year project intended to provide a comprehensive solution for the provision of cloud services to the government, the defence system and other groups in the economy, the ministry said.
It noted that the availability of cloud services in Israel will allow significant transfer of government services to capitalise on the technological advantages in the cloud to improve services to citizens and increase economic efficiency. It will also help promote Israel’s innovation and encourage the creation of an eco-system in cloud technologies, it added.
Under the deal, Google and Amazon are committed to making reciprocal purchases and industrial cooperation in Israel equivalent to 20% of the value of the contract.
Another tender process is under way to address the third part of the project, in which dozens of local suppliers will be selected to assist in the migration of government systems to the cloud and the development of systems in the cloud environment.
(Reporting by Steven Scheer. Editing by Mark Potter)
